Genuinely disturbing how missionary "work" is still so normal. Like I do not understand how anyone can listen to someone talk about their cutesy little Christian colonizer vacation to a deeply exploited community and not just be horrified and disgusted.
Not just normal, but lauded. Missionaries are praised for (supposedly) bringing resources and infrastructure to impoverished people without it ever being acknowledged that 1) that aid is contingent on converting and abandoning local beliefs and traditions and 2) those communities are usually only impoverished in the first place because of Christian colonialist empires.
It boggles my mind that people will talk about somebody's missionary work like it was some act of charity and self-sacrifice when it's really just going up to a bunch of people who are starving to death and telling them you'll give them some rice if they join your cult. It's 50% White Man's Burden and 50% extortion racket.
Not to mention how often that "aid" is useless to the people who are suffering.
Missionary-built houses are often made with incredibly cheap materials by people who are absolutely not qualified for that work AND they aren't designed with the cultural and social needs of the people they're for or the climate and infrastructure of the area in mind. Immediate aid like bottled water produce even more trash and pollutants that many communities are not equipped to handle. Farming methods taught often aren't designed for the area or climate and don't fully provide for the nutritional needs of the community (and then those people are demonized for poaching by Westerners who don't understand that an animal being endangered means very little when your family is starving). Even educational materials are poorly translated, Western-centric, and strictly Christian (along with often being controlled and modified by extremist, militant, and terrorist groups that control the areas).
And on top of all that, it doesn't include or involve any of the local community in any part of the process. Nobody local is distributing it. Nobody local is building it. Nobody local is producing it. Nobody local is getting training, employment, wages, or any kind of permanent uplifting infrastructure. Missionary aid creates more dependence on the Western Christian apparatus instead of creating any kind of Self-Sufficiency.
The Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad is, to a modern audiences, what classicists have called âboring as hell,â but I canât help but think that if you were watching Homer recite it it would have been more like when comedians go, âanybody here tonight from Chicago?â and the Chicagoans in the back start cheering
Homerâs like, âand there were forty black ships from⊠LOCRISâ and the Locrians in the crowd start going absolutely nuts
literally i love that part and i love the theory that the catalog of ships would have changed and been adjusted in the recitation based on who was hosting the recitation or where it was being held to try to curry favor with the hosts.
Russians don't give love to their children, but they steal and re-educate Ukrainian children with such perverse fanaticism
That's horrifying to watch⊠I almost threw up when I was downloading that video.
My little brother and I were kidnapped by Russia along with 19,000 other children when Putin invaded Ukraine. We need American help to save
The most painful quotes:
-When the Russians took me, I was sent to a technical school where I was subjected to daily false stories about Ukrainians and sometimes even insults. One day, I was called to the principalâs office and when I got there, she had citizenship documents ready for me to sign. I was stunned and disgusted. I had never been more afraid, but I refused to become a Russian citizen.
The principal glowered at me with hatred in her eyes. She berated me for being "stupid." Moments later, I was expelled and sent packing, in a country that I did not know, and that hated who I was.
-After Save Ukraine helped me return home, I needed to get my brother out too. I found him in a new foster family, but he was not the boy I knew. He had been subjected to months of Russian propaganda and manipulation. He was like a puppet, saying things that I knew he did not believe â that Ukraine was run by Nazis, that nobody in Ukraine cared about him and that he had no future unless he became a Russian citizen.
-When I begged him to return home with me, he refused. Hour after hour ticked by as we argued. As I was about to lose hope, he came to his senses and agreed to come home with me. We were lucky. But there are 19,000 kidnapped Ukrainian children still in Russia. The Russian government bombards them with propaganda and abuse to weaken their Ukrainian identity. Many are punished for speaking Ukrainian.
I'm in tears: "... I feel very sad and have no desire to live". Russians' obsession is to break Ukrainians mentally, including children.
Ukraine has handed over to Qatar a list with the names of 561 Ukrainian children who were taken to Russia.
This was reported by Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.
âȘïžWait for the return of a group of Ukrainian children home. We are not disclosing details at this time.
âȘïž Talking about the return of orphans and children deprived of parental care. Qatar agreed to work on the issue of their return to Ukraine. Preliminarily, there may be more than 3,600 such children.
âȘïžQatar agreed to participate in negotiations with Russia on the return of civilians illegally detained by Russia.
Lubinets also once again refuted Russian propaganda: there were no direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. All negotiations are mediated by Qatar.
Only on 27 April 2023, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized that the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia meets the criteria of genocide.
Personally, I support what they have become because its an expression of our youth's dissastisfaction with the lack of accountability and any competent action from the government.
However, the lack of discusssion on the policy that can fix education has upset me since Day 1 of the protests. While it may have started out as a memorial for the 21 victims of the Re-NEET examination, it culminated into something much bigger than that. The system itself needs an overhaul- so the resignation of one person will not cut it. In fact, as I write this, they've shifted Dharmendra Pradhan to become Odissa's education minister so what was the point. Also, they chose another sycophant and an RSS shakha member now.
These people will only inject agenda into education and not do policy for the sake of the betterment of education. Until they are all gone and BJP is out of power will we continue to have our shitty system.
There's a lot of people wanting to specifically stop AIPAC from spending money in elections, and are demanding candidates refuse donations and political contributions or endorsements from AIPAC.
And look, there's a lot to be said about big money in politics, and I think we ought to do something to limit the amount of spending that can influence elections, to level the playing field. Nobody should be able to just buy elections or candidates. But singling out AIPAC isn't about stopping big money from influencing politics. To address that should always be all-encompassing, not target specific interest groups because you disagree with them. That's not democratic, that's discrimination.
you know who donates to AIPAC? Who AIPAC are?
People like me. Everyday, regular, working class Americans. Heck, I work full time just to keep a roof over my head! That organization is just a bunch of people, American citizens, who believe in the importance of America's positive relationship with Israel, and who organize to raise funds for that cause, to lobby Congress to maintain and strengthen that cooperation with Israel, and to support candidates in both parties who will do that.
And they can't do that without donations from, yes some wealthy millionaires and billionaires, but also working class people. This includes Jewish Americans, but it also includes Americans from all walks of life, all religious and non-religious views, of all backgrounds, of all income levels, from across the political ideological spectrum, socialists, leftists, progressives, liberals, centrists, corporations, conservatives, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, White, Black, Asian, Indian, Native American, Latino, from civil rights groups, to interventionist war hawks, to anti-war activists.
Y'all use AIPAC like a dog whistle. It's the DSA, Greens, and populist-left's equivalent to "welfare queens" and "DEI". You don't even know what it is or who it represents. You just keep circulating the same lies and conspiracy theories between each other over and over, reinforcing hateful, bigoted manufactured rage at your Jewish scapegoat.
Yes, Jews are voting for the candidates who AIPAC supports. Because Jews are being assaulted, murdered, harassed, blamed for all the world's problems, and accused of controlling politics globally and domestically in America, all with the plausible deniability that y'all just mean "zionists" and "Israel" when you target Jews for being Jewish regardless of their views of Israel.
You think there's no reason Jews will vote for their safety? You need to examine your biases.
Further context: Durham city council (Reform UK) cut funding and support for Pride. The Durham Miner's Association and other trade unions raised enough money for Durham Pride 2026 to go ahead - a direct call back to when Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised money for mining communities when Margaret Thatcher seized union funding during the miner strikes of 1984-85.
At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.
Stephen Guy, the chair of the Durham Minersâ Association, said that when it became apparent Durham Pride was under threat, he took it upon himself to âencourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT+ community [âŠ] They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity.â
Israeli voters are quietly doing something New Yorkâs mayor can't: putting Netanyahu's coalition on track to lose.
If you, like so many American Jews this week, are focused on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdaniâs video message urging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the city in September, youâre missing the real story.
Pay attention, instead, to what is happening thousands of miles away â not in Manhattan, but in Israel, where the latest polls show Netanyahu and his ruling coalition trailing badly.
In New York, itâs the same old story: Israel guilty, Palestinians blameless, nothing in between. In Tel Aviv and Jerisalem, in Nazareth and Eilat, something else is brewing: change, maybe even hope.
Gadi Eisenkot â the former IDF chief of staff who broke with Netanyahuâs government over the Gaza War â now leads a new party, Yashar. Projections suggest his bloc would win 59 seats if the election were held today, compared to 51 for Netanyahuâs ruling coalition, according to the latest poll,
Eisenkot also beats Netanyahu head-to-head as the preferred prime minister, 43% to 37%.
If Eisenkot joins with Arab parties his coalition would receive 69 seats, substantially more than the 61 seats needed to govern. Though Eisenkot has not said yet whether he would link up with Arab parties, a plurality of Eisenkotâs potential voters (44%) said they would support such a move, in a country where Arab parties have only once been part of a governing coalition.
Eisenkot is no dove. He is someone who has concluded, rightly, that the threats Israel faces include the ones itâs inflicting on itself.
He has vowed to strengthen Israeli democracy and pursue diplomacy with Israelâs neighbors. His partyâs platform calls for non-military national service for Arabs, something 75.8% of them favor. His likely coalition partners will include the Democrats, a smaller party expected to win 10 to 11 seats, for whom resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a defining issue. âI see the conflict and the continued occupation as the greatest tragedy of our lives,â Emilie Moatti of the Democrats said at a party rally last month. âThe most moral and patriotic act is to end it.â
These are the most hopeful winds to blow through Israeli politics in memory, ahead of the Oct. 27 election â the closest Israelis have come to real, structural change in years. Meanwhile, in the United States, itâs Mamdaniâs admission that he lacks the power to arrest Netanyahu â and call for the federal government to do so instead â that has captured the mediaâs attention and consumed American Jews all week. But one of these stories is theater, the other is real.
Weâve let ourselves become consumed by an empty threat from a politician with no power to carry it out, instead of doing everything we can to support those Israelis who actually have the power to change their country.
In this farce, Netanyahu and the anti-Israel movement each need a cartoon version of the other to keep telling their one-sided story.
Imagine if Mamdani used his platform to draw attention to Makom Lekulanu, âA Place for Us All,â the only Arab-Jewish party standing for election. Instead the mayor of the American anti-Israel movement keeps the focus relentlessly on Netanyahu â because a country full of Netanyahus is a much darker story to tell, and a much more useful foil, than the complicated, pluralistic reality the polls actually show.
Netanyahu and his American supporters need Mamdani for the same reason â to paint Israel as besieged and alone, and all of Israelâs critics as clownish and illegitimate. But Netanyahuâs real critics arenât clowns. Theyâre serious, Israel-loving Israelis â a former army chief among them â and they are beating him at the polls.
With Netanyahu offering voters more of the same â attacks on the judiciary, fear-mongering over Arab citizens voting and deeper dependence on his religious and far-right partners â a growing number of centrist Israelis have concluded that a Netanyahu win would put Israelâs very future at risk.
âIf Netanyahu wins, itâs going to be a significant crisis, maybe a final crisis for many segments of Israeli society,â journalist Nadav Eyal said on the Jonah Platt podcast.
In this context, Mamdaniâs theatrics are one more sign of how untethered the American conversation about Israel has become from whatâs actually at stake on the ground. American Jews should stop reacting to him and start paying attention to the people with the power to actually change Israelâs future.
They canât donate to Israeli political parties, but they can support Israeli NGOs that fund get-out-the-vote and voter education campaigns. They can back U.S. nonprofits that help promote better Israeli policies. And they can do the simplest thing of all: talk about this election â online, in shul, at the Shabbat table, anywhere the conversation has gotten stuck on Mamdani, which is everywhere. Doing that will add real dimension to a very stale debate.
New York voters will, in time, vote on whether their mayorâs selective obsession with Israel is making their city a better, more affordable place to live. Thatâs their business. But anyone who cares about Israelis and Palestinians should put their energy and focus where it really matters: on the people and movements who havenât been this close to real, positive change in years.
"i know this show was made for children but i enjoy it too." > awesome and cool. watch whatever you want forever.
"i know it LOOKS like it was made for children but its SECRETLY for us. calling it a kids show is an insult cause kids could never understand these THEMES and EMOTIONS. we're the TRUE fans." > i dont think i trust your opinions. you seem lame as fuck.
Honestly the amount of people I've talked to who formed an opinion on the geopolitics of the middle east who were suprised to learn that hezbollah is not the elected government of Lebanon, and the elected government is seperate and hates hezbollah is shocking.
If you do not know that basic fact, you should be shutting the fuck up!
Gotta be up there in the "politics enjoyer" zeitgeist with the people who think Iran and Afghanistan are Arab nations or that dude who thought Ukraine blowing up wildberries warehouses were blowing up "blueberry factories".
Do you think tumblr will ever learn the difference between âIâm defending this person because I agree with them wholeheartedly and I am also like this personâ and âIâm defending this person because your behavior is dangerous and you need to stopâ
IMO, blurring the lines between âIâm defending them because theyâre rightâ and âIâm defending them because youâre taking this too farâ is step numero uno to cutting down the very existence of fair trial and democracyâeven in places where saying that might seem a little dramatic.Â
Mob mentality is extremely strong in humans and itâs also extremely dangerous. Mobs donât think things through. Mobs kill and they destroy and they canât be reasoned with. Someone trying to calm a mob down isnât someone defending the ~problematic party~ Itâs time we re-learn that.
This is easily one of the CRAZIEST videos I've ever gotten. I was rafting down a river when a Yellow Jacket came, landed on my bright pink waterproof phone pouch, and started drinking from the water droplets that had gathered there.
The most amazing part is how the water droplet magnifies the Hornet's mouth parts, so you get to see them up-close!!!! It was FASCINATING to witness!
Here's some of my favorite still shots from that video:
If you say you care about and support survivors of sexual violence while simultaneously calling the incredible amounts of documented evidence of mass rape and sexual torture on October 7 and the testimonies of surviving hostages âliesâ - NO THE FUCK YOU DONâT.
Iâm not joking even a tiny little bit when I say by doing so, you betray every single person on this earth who has ever been raped or sexually abused, every single person who needed people to believe them, every single person who has ever lived silently with what has happened to them because they knew they wouldnât be believed or they would be blamed for their own abuse. Every single one.
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